There’s talk of genetically altering cows to feel no pain:

Philosopher Adam Shriver suggested that genetically engineering cows to feel no pain could be an acceptable alternative to eliminating factory farming in a paper published in Neuroscience. Work by neuroscientist Zhou-Feng Chen at Washington University may turn Shriver’s suggestion a reality. Chen has been working on identifying the genes that control “affective” pain, the unpleasantness part of a painful sensation.

Let’s leave aside the many health issues that arise from factory farming, and focus purely on the ethical impact of altering cows so we may slaughter them more effectively. The first and most obvious question is, do you think this is humane or inhumane?

Now let’s imagine the implications. What if this affects the taste? Perhaps cows experiencing pain increases the tastiness of the meat. In that case, this sort of engineering opens the door to cows engineered specifically to feel more pain. Then there is the function of pain to be considered. Cows unable to feel pain could injure themselves to the point of accidental death.

Why stop with pain? Why not engineer animals with minimal brain tissue, so that they are not even conscious? How about engineering animals whose bodies release endorphins in a way that encourages lack of movement, and makes behavior most conducive to mass farming seem desirable? Or engineering flavors into cows, so their meat comes with a particular flavor built in from birth?

That this is even being considered should give us grave pause, and occasion us to give more than a cursory glance to the ethical price of our eating habits.

That depends on you, dear reader.

It looks like the White House really does oppose it (Majikthise). This sounds far more credible than I find comfortable.

So what to do? Via Pandagon, Bitch Ph.D. has some suggestions:

Lookie here: the Blue Dogs have a handy little “contact us” page. One imagines that if they, like the White House, get a ton of pressure from Democratic voters–especially if the individual members also get a lot of emails, letters, and phone calls from constituents in their state.

Even if the fuckers are too beholding to the insurance companies to be swayed, I bet we can make them verrrry uncomfortable. They deserve it.

Call your congress critters! Go to local town hall meetings and speak out for a public option. The health insurance industry and their allies in congress have had their say. Let’s have ours, and let’s have it loudly.

Just a few words, before the professor Gates arrest and subsequent arrest of DC lawyer Tuma fades into the memory hole.
We need abuse of authority laws with the same power as hate crime laws. We need to challenge the culture behind our police state.

This is the USA, land of the free. Not land of the probably guilty and escaped convicts. Our country shouldn’t feel like a police state. And yet (Digby):

It is very rude of citizens to do that, to be sure. But it is not a crime. The idea that people should not get angry, should not pull rank, should be rude to others is an issue for sociologists and Miss Manners, not the cops. Humans often behave badly, but that doesn’t make it illegal. For people with such tremendous power as police officers to be coddled into thinking that these are behaviors that allow them to arrest people (or worse) seems to be to far more dangerous than allowing a foolish person or two to set a bad example in the public square.

The police are failing, across the country, in their duty:

We shouldn’t have to make the same calculations about how to behave with police as we would with armed criminals. The police are supposed to be the good guys who follow the rules and the law and don’t expect innocent citizens to bow to their brute power the same way that a street gang would do. The police are not supposed wield what is essentially brute force on the entire population.

We need to change this. Its easy to be critical of other countries and cultures with police states:

f it’s someone else’s culture, we have no problem seeing the problems with making people adopt a submissive, humiliated pose merely because they’re speaking to the police, or that cops are given loosely defined laws and plenty of discretion, so they can just go on power trips and abuse people who they perceive as deserving of their oppression. When it’s someone else’s country, the excessive use of violence, leering behavior towards women, and abusing racial or ethnic minorities seems so obviously wrong. I doubt many people who are calling Gates “stupid” did anything but cheer, for instance, when reading the section of “Persepolis” where Marjane puts herself in danger by telling a cop to quit staring at her ass. When it’s not our cops, it’s a lot easier to see that demanding perfect submission to police authority is fucked the fuck up.

It is easy, yes, but it is essential to our own freedom that we make those critiques of our own police state.

We need to start by calling this behavior out wherever it rears its ugly head, and by recognizing it is a part of a single toxic problem with our culture. We need to change how we view and treat authority in this country. Children are not drug addicts being held in daycare prisons. Citizens are not obligated to bow and scrape while keeping their mouth glued shut in the presence of police officers. And we must stop giving those with the authority to imprison and hurt us even the smallest pass on that abuse of authority. Abuse of authority needs to be a serious crime. Just as hate crimes recognize that certain actions target entire communities beyond the immediate victim, we need to recognize that abuse of authority does the same.

I am advocating a new kind of law. When an authority figure oversteps their bounds and uses their power to assault, imprison or take advantage of another person, there needs to be strict and meaningful enforcement alongside the explicit recognition of the existence and impact of that abuse of authority.

The Republicans are engaging in fascist tactics to repress town hall Democracy while spitting out the most vicious and fearful lies they can think up.

The misnamed center straight up wants to kill health care reform.

The Democrats are working to ensure whatever reform exists will have as little meaning as possible, keeping the control with a handful of private for profit companies that literally get away with murder. (Which boils down to the essential question, what do we do to stop the systematic betrayal by people we fundraise, organize and vote for?)

The President is on a promise breaking spree, trying to see how firmly he can fasten the phrase “have politics as usual” onto the end of “yes we can”.

Privileged members of the press with access to influence public opinion fundamentally do not understand health care as a basic human right.

Health Care in this country managed by companies that exist to make money, not to ensure Americans get health care. Health Care costs are such that individual Americans cannot hope to afford their care without outside assistance. Thus even covered Americans have no protection against the whims of insurance executives. What they do directly amounts to murder.

Yet our reform process is being led by Democrats willing to make concessions on vital points, and then give those up at even the appearance of opposition. It is being opposed by Republicans, the health care industry and a media willing to go to any length to prevent meaningful change, including lying and inciting violence. What little hope we have in government is in the timid Progressive Caucus. Health Care is a human right, and absolutely every power player in this game is working to ensure we change nothing of substance.

Funny that, in a country where 72% of the nation wants health care reform. Makes you wonder why WE aren’t on the streets protesting. Makes you wonder a lot of things.

Haven’t been blogging of late, but here’s some good reads to tide over folks who still travel here:

WriteChic: Man Murdered by Health Insurance Companies (Obama should read this EVERY DAY until Health Care Reform passes).
DailyKos: Health Care – If you think you’ll always be insurable, Think Again.
Crooks and Liars: Hard Hitting Advertising on Health Care Works!

Feministing: Pharmacists can’t refuse to offer Plan B!
Orcinus: A Reminder That Sarah Palin is a Liar Unfit for Public Office.
Orcinus: Rush Limbaugh Encouraging a Coup Against Obama.
Orcinus (Seriously this is a MUST READ BLOG): Tea Partiers Stepping Up the Crazy.
Pandagon: Apparently the Love Segregation Movement in DC is just a touch psychotic.
Some Guy With a Website (Freaking AWESOME-PANTS Cartoon): Obama and Reid – Super Problem Solvers.
Majikthise: Is on CNN! (Note to Linux Users, CNN HATES YOU and no you cannot watch).
Majikthise: Apparently the US locked up a Journalist seeking asylum. Niiiiice move us.
HateWatch: Will Congress Investigate Extremists in the Military?
United States of Jamerica: On the Wisdom of Bipartisanship.

And in this episodes absolute must read brilliant screed of no uncertain power, the Unapologetic Mexican rings in with this: The Power of Truth and the Weakness of Tough Talk.

We’ve got a majority in congress and a President on our team. As Bill Maher says, if not now, when?
The answer is never.
If Democrats don’t fight for meaningful health care reform in this country, I am THROUGH with them. As Susie Madrak notes:

If Obama does, in fact, include language to prevent the public health plan from becoming a single-payer option, we might as well kiss this Democratic majority goodbye. Because, as history shows, given the choice between a fake Republican and a real one, people will pick the real one every time!

Its go time people. We need to make a stand. Health Care reform is a life or death issue. Setting up a website to get us worked up, and then stepping up to the negotiating table having already given up, is the worst sort of betrayal. It isn’t the change we voted for, its an even bolder more of the same brand of politics. The kind where the people get royally fucked over for the sake of companies, in this case, the insurance industry.

No more.

If the Democrats can’t pull a win that means something out of this battle, its time to start organizing against them. Every single Democrat who opposes the public health option needs to be ruthlessly and energetically challenged in their next primary. Dr Howard Dean has a useful list here. You go on that list as a no, and you are on OUR list as someone to actively oppose during the next election.

I’m very happy and proud to see Jim Webb of Virginia firmly in the supporter’s column, along with Kerry and Kennedy from my home state of Massachusetts.

Where do your Representatives and Senators stand?

Republicans Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham vowed to block torture evidence by “any means necessary” (HuffPost).

Wonder if they’d resort to torture?

We live in a sick, twisted world. Sometimes it is too much. This is one of those times (via Jesus’ General).

These places need to be shut the fuck down.

I get email! A reader (Liz) took issue with my post “The Problem With Calling Abortion Murder“.

She didn’t like my use of the term “anti-choice” to describe the falsely named “pro-life” crowd. She writes:

Your use of the term “anti-choice” is very misleading, and shows a significant misunderstanding of the term.

The term anti-choice by definition means “one who opposes ALL choices”, no matter what the topic of choice be. The opposition to abortion does not stem from the opposition of choices in general (as the term anti-choice would lead one to believe). Those who oppose abortion are against feticide and embryocide, thus making them anti-feticide, anti-embryocide, or anti-abortion. Just as someone who opposes the choice of a man to hit his wife is not anti-choice, but anti-domestic-violence, the correct label for a person who opposes abortion would be anti-abortion (or anti-feticide, anti-embryocide, etc.)

I would invite you to visit the website www.notantichoice.com to review and read more information on this subject and on the use of the term anti-choice.

Anti-feticide is misleading too (it implies there is a murder taking place). But she has a point. After all, pro-choicers object to the term pro-life because the very same people tend to support war, the death penalty, and in fact seem so opposed to social programs one might say they shift from pro-life to anti-life the second one exits the womb. Anti-choice (and pro-choice) are both a bit confusing to someone utterly unfamiliar with the abortion debate in the US. Just what could we be talking about? What term should we use?

I prefer a term I first read over at Jesus’s General. The Compelled Birth Movement. This is about as accurate a term as one can create. The Compelled Birth Movement not only has the advantage of being stunningly accurate, its also quite handy for hinting at the misogynistic desire to control women behind the compelled birth movement.

Thus anti-choice becomes compelled birth. What does pro-choice become? We’ve got a couple options. Pro-Women. The Reproductive Rights Movement. I like both. Pro-Women accurately describes the kind of people who stand up for reproductive rights.

Either way, changing our language to be more exact is a wise move to make. It will slowly help shift the discourse our way. Every time a Compelled Birth advocate claims to be pro-life, feel free to make a very public correction.

I’m not sure what to do with these.  Three comments by people who clearly read my post, and who are just as clearly simply responding to my blog because the word “fitness” is in the title.  I want to reiterate my comment policy on spam:

Spam comments in the past, if applicable to the post, have had the spam links removed and the comments allowed.  Now, all spam comments will simply be blocked.  Period.

If I approve a useful comment from a spammer who took the trouble to read and respond to a post, then akismet will then allow that person to continue to comment.  So even if I remove the spam links, they might add more comments later with links to sketchy sites.  I don’t have time to police this blog.  So the rule is, if you spam, you are blocked.  And by blocked I mean I click “spam” on the helpful little akismet interface.

I’ve been denied health care coverage (Blue Cross and Celtic), for the crime of having prior conditions.  It is therefore with bitter attachment I watch our government fight over health care reform.  If they wanted to, Republicans and Democrats could join together and pass a simple bill: Insurers should not be allowed to pick and choose who they cover.  They won’t.  They will bicker, grand stand and attach riders to bills and – in the end – fail to take decisive action.

I’m not in the mood to hear bullshit supporting the privilege of insurance companies to discriminate over the rights of individuals to affordable medical care.  The truth is that in any other industrialized nation this would not be an issue: It damn hell shouldn’t be in ours.

I have COBRA for a while longer, but its very expensive and the coverage isn’t that great.  Then I’m not sure what I’ll do.

The only thing I know I can do is stand with the President and fight, and hope he makes this a priority.  Hope everyone in congress makes this a priority.

In the meantime I’m left wondering how so many Senators and Representatives could care so little about the value of human life that they would rather defend the profit margins of insurance corporations than ensure their constituents are allowed medical care.

Please join me in making Health Care Reform a priority.

Randall Terry,

Since you are effectively endorsing murder, if someone kills you will you have reaped what you’ve sown?

Or just maybe, will a fucking crime have been committed?

I disagree with you strongly, but I will never, ever advocate violence against you. That’s a key difference of character between us. And I feel for the family still grieving over George Tiller’s murder at the hands of a deviant, evil man. And I feel for the family of whoever else takes you at your word and decides to commit murder for the darkly ironic pro-life movement.

A Police Officer in Paden, OK pulled over an ambulance with a patient inside to issue a traffic citation (Huffington Post).

WTF?

Despite being told that the woman in the ambulance needed to get to the hospital, the trooper insisted that one of the paramedics be detained in his car. When he tried to handcuff a paramedic, a fight ensued, which was filmed by the husband of the patient.

What happened to priorities?

Let’s say I said administrators at a school were routinely picking out high school students teachers didn’t like, and killing them.  Let’s say in addition, they had the full complicity of our legal system.  Would you be in the streets protesting?  Would you be writing articles or blog posts?  Or would you be in that school trying to rescue the kids, and shooting the administrators?

The problem with lying and calling abortion murder is that it leads directly to shit like this: An abortion provider was shot to death in Kansas.

Make no mistake about it, calling abortion murder is a lie.  One that anti-choice activists do not believe:

If abortion is murder, why don’t anti-choice activists support charging women who have abortions with murder?  They don’t, because the anti-choice movement is about restricting women’s freedoms and imposing religious law on everyone in this country.

Meanwhile the nuttier activists in the poorly named pro-life movement decide to take matters into their own hands and commit actual murder.

This has to stop, and the place to start is with the lie that abortion is murder.

Doing so actively invites violence against everyone involved in an abortion, and at best is horribly irresponsible and unethical of the people who repeat the lie.  At worst it is an active incitement to commit a crime.

One of the best arguments against Gay Marriage I’ve heard from Rob Thomas (emphasis mine):

Still, I’m amazed at the audacity of a small, misdirected group of the ultra-conservative Christian right wing, to spend millions of dollars, in a recession, on advertisements to stop two men or women who love each other from being able to be married, but when you present any opposition to them, they accuse you of attacking their religion.

I had not thought of that angle.  What does it say about those pouring money into opposing gay marriage, during a recession, that they’d rather prevent people from enjoying equal rights than reach out to the poor and the meek and help those in need?

As an added bonus, he adds:

Isn’t it funny that the people who are the quickest to take someone’s basic rights to happiness are always the loudest to scream when someone attacks their right to do so?

Amen.